1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to determining rooftop visibility from a transmitter for line of sight (LOS) wireless communication services, and more specifically to the use of elevation data for determining service availability for LOS radio services.
2. Background Art
Being able to efficiently determine the visibility from a transmitter for LOS wireless communications services to a service location is critical to effective service rollout. For large geographical regions, rooftops are typically manually/visually located using geo-coded aerial photography. Street addresses are normally estimated from location using conventional GPS-style interpolations. Unfortunately, the resulting information is often difficult to obtain, and roof heights and locations cannot be reliably determined from normal aerial photography. Thus, the determination of transmitter sites is extremely cumbersome and often time unreliable. Additionally, making assessments as to whether line of sight exists from a transmitter site to a location for which service may be desired is also difficult and often times unreliable. Finally, placement of antennas at a location to increase the likelihood of reliable LOS service is not readily and reliably available.
What are needed therefore are systems, methods, and computer program products that enable efficient determination of the visibility from a transmitter for LOS radio services to a service location.